There are a lot of flaws with the Nokia XL Android phone, but its biggest flaw is that it’s not for sale in the U.S.

The XL sells for about $150—with no contract—in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. As such, the XL is a bare bones smartphone built for budget buyers, many of whom are new to smartphones all together.

Nothing here would impress an iPhone or Galaxy owner, but that’s not the point. The point here is to get users hooked into the services of Nokia’s new owners, Microsoft. Not only does its Android skin look a lot like Windows Phone, every new XL comes with 1 free month of worldwide Skype calls, and 10GB of free storage in OneDrive—both of which are Microsoft products.

Because of the XL’s parentage, you won’t find any of the Google apps or services that are generally preloaded on Android phones. Instead of Google Maps, the XL has Nokia’s Here maps. Instead of Google search, there’s Bing. Instead of Google Play to download apps, the XL offers up Nokia’s own sparsely stocked Android app store. Even Microsoft’s Xbox Music app—which is available for Android through Google Play, as well as for the iPhone and Windows Phone—can’t be found in Nokia’s store.

Many popular apps such as Netflix and Spotify aren’t available in Nokia’s store either. They are, however, available in Amazon’s Appstore, which we downloaded onto the XL via the phone’s Web browser. Within minutes, we’d installed apps and games that were noticeably absent from Nokia’s store.

The Nokia XL is well built and brightly colored—signature Nokia.

Emily Prapuolenis/The Wall Street Journal

The XL is thick but sturdily built, and it’s decently weighted at 6.7 ounces. The display is a large at 5 inches, though the resolution low at 480×800 pixels. The 1GHz single-core CPU and under 1GB of RAM result in the XL feeling like a sluggish performer. Apps such as Here Maps stutter noticeably from the low-powered hardware. The 5-megapixel rear camera and 2-megapixel front cameras both take muddy photos. There’s also only 4GB of internal storage, though there is a microSD card slot if you want to add your own.

Perhaps the biggest dealbreaker is that the XL doesn’t run on the fast 4G networks now so prevalent in the U.S. It handles only 3G and 2G networks, which makes sense since most of the countries where the XL is sold don’t yet have 4G networks. Battery life isn’t terrible, but it didn’t wow us either. In our tests, we got about a day’s worth of battery life with normal usage checking email, using maps, surfing the Web and playing games.

While there’s nothing cutting-edge about the XL, and it’s riddled with price-driven compromises, it’s not a terrible handset. Many of its faults would not be an issue for kids, cash-strapped students and those who want a basic smartphone. With the XL, you get what you pay for. It’s just too bad that in the U.S., we don’t have the option to pay for it at all.